Thirteen Minutes per Passage

The reading section is one long clock, not three separate ones, so nothing stops a slow first passage from quietly stealing minutes from the third. Breaking the time into three near-equal blocks fixes that. Each block covers one passage and its nine questions, and the block itself is split again: a stretch for reading, a longer stretch for answering, and a short reserve at the end. The reserve is what catches you if a passage runs long or a question needs a second look, without wrecking the next block.

Inside a block, reading comes first because it builds a map of the passage: where the argument turns, where each character or claim shows up, what each paragraph is doing. Skipping straight to the questions feels faster but isn't. Without a map, each question sends you back into the text cold, and you pay that search cost again and again instead of once. A paired passage set changes the shape of the block slightly: you need time to read both texts and also to compare them, so the reading portion stretches a bit and the answering portion compresses, but the total still holds to the same block.

Zoomed out, the block is also a sorting tool across all three passages. If a block is running past its minutes, that tells you to move on and bank points elsewhere rather than let the whole 40 minutes collapse into one stubborn passage. Treat each 13-minute block as its own small test, and the whole section stays under control.